Sainsbury’s has announced plans to axe three key services in its stores this year. The supermarket chain has confirmed it will be shutting its remaining patisserie, hot food and pizza counters “by early summer” as it released its latest financial results for the year up to March 1, 2025.

The plan to axe the three services follows the closure of all Sainsbury’s Cafes earlier this year which resulted in the loss of 3,000 jobs. The supermarket said the job losses - which affected about 2% of its 148,000 staff - were part of plans to “simplify the business” amid a “particularly challenging cost environment”.

The most popular items sold from the patisseries, hot food and pizza counters are instead to be moved to aisles within Sainsbury’s stores. The supermarket has also announced plans to create new “On the Go” hubs which will offer hot food to customers from autumn this year.

In an update, Sainsbury’s said: “In January, we announced a number of propositional changes to food services in our stores in order to drive growth and availability at a reduced cost to serve, allowing us to create further space to offer more fresh food ranges. 

“By early Summer we will have closed patisserie, hot food and pizza counters and are making the most popular items available in aisles. We have now closed all remaining Sainsbury’s Cafés and we are converting our scratch bakeries to bake-off, driving improvements in quality, value and availability throughout the day."

They added: “From the Autumn, we will create new On the Go hubs with flexiserve hot food offerings, delivering an improved customer experience.”

Sainsbury’s said the plans build on its grocery performance and is confident the cuts will help to deliver its goal of reaching £1 billion of cost savings by March 2027.

Simon Roberts, Chief Executive of J Sainsbury plc, said: “We’ve transformed our business over the past four years. We have created a winning combination of value, quality and service that customers love, investing £1 billion in lowering our prices. 

“More people are choosing Sainsbury’s for their main grocery shop as a result, delivering our highest market share gains in more than a decade. We are committed, above all else, to sustaining the strong competitive position we have built - consistently giving customers the great value they have come to expect from Sainsbury’s - and we expect to continue to outperform the market.

“Our customer offer is the strongest it has ever been. We’ve expanded Aldi Price Match to more products than ever before in addition to offers on more than 9,000 products with Nectar Prices. Customer satisfaction with product availability is at record levels and we’re continuing to add more new, innovative products to our ranges."

He added: “Nectar is taking our ability to create personalised value and loyalty to the next level and our long-term contracts with farmers and suppliers demonstrate our commitment to resilience and sustainability across the UK food system.”